Methodology Design – What Type of Study Did They Do?

Systematic reviews are a way of summarising the literature to answer a specific three part question.

Three part questions

A three part question is where the population, intervention (or exposure) and outcome are described in advance.

Some people use four part PICO questions , (Population, Intervention, Control, Outcome), but the difference between these two approaches is rarely important.

Narrative reviews

Systematic reviews differ from narrative reviews, where a respected expert, e.g. Professor Tufton-Bufton of Ivory Tower Hospital, writes what he thinks about a topic.
The material covered in a narrative review is usually much wider and less objectively appraised than in a systematic review. Meta-analysis is simply using mathematical wizardry to combine (pool) the results.